George Emsdenhttp://www.georgeemsden.co.uk
Guidance with a Difference for People with CancerSat, 14 Mar 2015 11:27:18 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=346Entrepreneurs and Sheephttp://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/entrepreneurs-and-sheep/
http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/entrepreneurs-and-sheep/#commentsWed, 04 Feb 2015 16:18:15 +0000http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=17351First Meeting of the Year

Lawyers Nabarro are 3Cs Community hosts again but in new offices in the City at London Wall up on the 18th floor. Now a very plush auditorium, the room is the former site of the dealing room in The London Whale Scandal where a J P Morgan dealer lost his employer US$ 1.2 billion with a US$ 572 million fine on top.

Offering among other things, free draft legal documentation and fixed fees for raising finance, they are very busy with 120 capital raising deals completed so far. As a courtesy to the host concerned, meeting organiser Colin Spiller usually delivers a debrief next morning, but too many deals being done and no debrief required.

The City and All That

Think of the City of London and you may think of Dick Whittington and rather old fashioned institutions & events where the best known perhaps is the Lord Mayor’s Show in November. London is sometimes described as a twin city with the City of Westminster being the political bit and the City of London the financial. Whatever the former thinks of the latter, the government relies on the City to borrow money. Each City has their own Lord Mayor, but these are not to be confused with other recent London mayoral upstarts, where the incumbent is Boris Johnson.

So the City does business and while influence in some trades and professions has declined, no guilds or companies let the grass grow under their feet and all are involved in charity and supporting local communities. Some like The Worshipful Company of Carmen offer apprenticeships and bursaries, for those who want to work in the transport industry.

Forming the Guild of Entrepreneurs took four years of doing the rounds of the other Guilds & Companies, adding an inch to first speaker’s and Warden of Guild of Entrepreneurs Dan Doherty’s waistline. The terminology used in doing business with the various bodies in the City of London can be quaint. The existing guilds/companies who might support your creation, are called “non-objectors” while the entrance fee is called a “fine” and the regular subscription called “quarterage,” is paid annually. For the Guild of Entrepreneurs, the entrance fine and quarterage is £350 with any new member being expected to make a minimum charitable donation by Standing Order of £15 per month.

Ogenblik presenters Deborah Werbner and Lisa Erickson want to use wearable technology to help those with mental illness where the condition still carries an enormous stigma, affecting one in four adults at some point. Their talk mentions internet addiction where on the same day, I read of a Chinese guy who resorts to chopping his hand off as a remedy.

Ferguson Hill Studios

Based in Camden, Ferguson Hill Studios have a range of high end speakers from £250 to nearly £5,000. They are the third high end speaker presenter at 3Cs Community but differ from the previous two by outsourcing manufacturing to China. Previous presenters have made a strong point of manufacturing in the UK. All the same they have some very high profile customers, and by a small margin win the vote at the end of the meeting “If you had £100,00 to invest, which product would you go for?”

At one point 3Cs had a sophisticated programme for deciding the “best” speaker with about 20 different inputs. Proving Occam’s Razor perhaps or that simplest is best, a simple show of hands gave the same result, so that whoever would have spent the meeting tapping keys, can now enjoy the meeting.

Float UK

Bob Agnew the final speaker, offers another business where simple seems best with his float tanks. Resting on a bed never completely relaxes the body as the blood vessels at the bottom get squeezed. Solution, immerse in warm water that is 50 per cent denser than that in the Dead Sea. A feeling of weightlessness follows offering complete relaxation. There are a few float centres in the UK but most are run by enthusiasts who open for business when they fee like it – hardly a viable business model. Three centres are in London with sessions costing up to £55 but there is a lot of demand and Bob’s problem now is getting the resources to create a proper business.

A couple of friends and family spring to mind but the current locations are too far. Most interesting perhaps is that an immersion stops the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease for 2 -3 days, suggesting a huge potential market in care homes.

Curiously, the immersion technique reminds me my reading of The Ipcress File (novel) where at the end, a tank is found in which people were brainwashed by being immersed in blood heat temperature water and subjected to waves of sound. The tank was dropped in the film but not the waves of sound bit.

It’s time to go east again. Retirement gives flexibility on timing with the off-season airfare less than half the holiday season fare. But some things stay the same: travel insurance: £70; vaccinations on three different days the month before and certificate £90 plus the malaria tablets at £44 (only needed because I am visiting Laos) to be continued well after my return. I am not backpacking but I don’t need a plush hotel either, so my friend arranges a large studio room at £25 a night in the district of Sathorn which I know best and where my other friends live. Sathorn is also popular with farangs (foreigners) having 4 international schools there and recently, The London Pie shop which is thriving and includes Harrow School in Bangkok among its clients.

Walking back to the apartment after a lazy day on my own, a very glamorous lady (I can only see from the back) is getting into a taxi. I am very casually dressed in crumpled shorts, tee-shirt etc but I get the look as I walk past as she fluffs her hair and stares at me – why the attention in my dressed down state? My friend explains later, I am a farang of course, plus she rather spoils it for me, pointing out that the female concerned was probably a katoi or lady boy! It’s nice to have a drink at The British Club in Bangkok where over a cold beer, my host informs me that our old stomping ground Patpong, is only a shadow of its former self.

The Beer is still the same

This is my fourth visit to Thailand and sadly the shortest. The Singha (Lion) Beer still tastes good but my ageing taste buds now prefer its arch competitor Chang (Elephant) Beer. There’s time to make a short visit to Laos or Lao People’s Democratic Republic, mentioned on my previous Thai visit as the most laid back place on the planet. An overnight train journey from Bangkok station is arranged with a private double berth but only after website visits and two phone calls lead us to take a taxi to the train station where a first class double berth is suddenly available at Thai Baht 2,414. Bleary-eyed, we leave the train next morning at Nong Khai where a tuk-tuk driver takes us to a travel agent where for another Baht 2,500, we get a visa for me and my Thai friend and a lift to the customs post. Of this, Laos charges Baht 1,550 (£31 or in their currency, 383,000 Kip) At least the agent fills out the brief forms for us and after a rather chaotic crossing, we are in Vientiane a couple of hours later, 25 km from the border. Our driver arrives next morning to take us on a short tour of three temples, one of which Ho Pra Kaew, is the former home of the Emerald Buddha, now in Bangkok at Wat Phra Kaew.

For the first time in years, I send picture postcards which at time of writing have not arrived after 8 days. Makes me wonder how will this compare with a recent airmail letter to Ndola in Zambia which took 2 months to arrive?

It’s Quiet here

Described by my friend as a “modern town,” Vientiane is quieter and cheaper than Bangkok making it unsurprisingly full of farangs. After making a list of reasonably-priced hotels, a friend we meet at the border suggests another one down by the river Mekong, even cheaper at Baht 800 (£16) a night. The room has air conditioning, TV and a balcony where you can watch the sun going down. The friend has settled in Thailand with his Thai wife and needs to get his residence permit renewed, hence the trip over the border to Laos. A mini-bus full of similar trippers leaves for the Thai embassy while we wait for our bus.

Luang Prabang the ancient capital, is a day bus ride away so we decide to stay in Vientiane with its farangs and do Luang Prabang next time. On the way into Vientiane, we pass the impressive Lao Brewery whose lager is OK 5% ABV but I still prefer the Thai beer. Laos is one of the poorest countries on earth and has little industry. As a result, many Laos make a living by regularly crossing the border into Thailand to bring food among other things, back home.

For the first time, I notice grey hairs among the trippers – not surprising perhaps as the hippies of the sixties are now receiving their pensions. These are a lot more generous – in real terms too, than the Thai State Pension my friend now receives at Baht 600 per month. She can look forward to an increase to Baht 700 (£14) per month when she is 70.

Water Cannon?

Meanwhile in Vientiane, ministry buildings announce their presence in Lao and French where ladies working at these must wear the traditional “sinn” dress. We drive past The People’s Security Museum exhibiting what looks like a water cannon among the military vehicles parked outside. Lunch at a Lao restaurant is interesting where the food is OK but Thai is better. During our meal, the state TV channel repeatedly shows a grainy B&W film featuring communist leaders from the sixties, soldiers rushing into battle, happy peasants working in the paddy fields and patriotic songs that would probably sound familiar if you were in North Korea – interrupted by the occasional riff on an electric guitar.

Being Laos, glutinous or sticky rice tends to be at least as popular as the standard white rice with the former being served in small woven holders. Laid back is relative. Westerners love Thailand because it is easy going, Chinese find Thais lazy, Thais apparently find Laos lazy so it all depends at which end of the telescope you are. Japanese tourists, the model of politeness in Europe have a reputation for arrogance in Thailand where during my stay, complaints by a Japanese tourist about taxis at Suvanahboumi airport lead to protests by taxi drivers where one displays a notice refusing to take Japanese passengers. But I digress.

Back in Thailand, we stop again in Nong Khai to do some shopping. Silk scarves which I had haggled for my daughters down to Baht 330 each in Bangkok at Asiatique, are available at a marked price of 150 Baht. We are hungry, so we visit the well-known Vietnamese Daeng Namnueng restaurant and order a range of dishes including Vietnamese sausages. Neither of us really enjoy any of them. All the 5 dishes are bland by comparison to Thai food – am I getting fussy in my old age?

Thai Food News

My favourite breakfast in Thailand is Joak – a rice soup with pork meat balls and ginger. Add chilli, fish gravy or soy to taste. From a roadside stall of which there are half million in Thailand, a healthy breakfast is yours for Baht 35 (70p) and the prices are marked these days – so you won’t get ripped off. By comparison, a cup of coffee is around Baht 55 – best avoided.

For a change, there are noodles with chicken or crispy fried pork at Baht 40 (80p). Fresh coconut, Baht 20 or 30 and the seller will scoop out the coconut flesh for you. Fresh pineapple, same price. Steamed corn on the cob, Baht 20. Average cost for two dining out in a decent/popular restaurant: Baht 800 (£16) including beer – didn’t bother asking for wine.

A Bangkok riverside restaurant we visit twice – Savoey Riverview where all the dishes are delicious. Full of Thais (a good sign) and my farewell treat to my Thai friends, 6 diners – Baht 2,800 or £56.

Investing in new businesses is generally higher risk than investing in existing ones, since businesses that have survived have hopefully learned something. This can make it difficult for entrepreneurs to raise capital to get their business going, leading to the government allowing some pretty good tax breaks for investors in new businesses. These tax breaks include Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS) and Seed Enterprise Investment Schemes (SEIS)

In practice, this means lodging the appropriate paperwork, completed properly, in time, sometimes even on separate days in some stages of the process and perhaps having separate bank accounts for different categories of money. Regarding the latter for example, you may think, I’m in charge, it’s my business so I can run my business as I like? Well yes, but if you want the tax relief, being sloppy can be very expensive and if it sounds complicated – well it is. Here we get back to one of my mantrasfrom when I was a practising IFA, use a specialist for whatever job you need doing, rather than a guy who does this occasionally.

* Money has to be in the (appropriate) bank account before EIS shares can be issued and they have to be fully paid up.

* HMRC can be inconsistent since being such a huge organisation, one rarely gets to speak to the same person twice. Safest to write in but HMRC are slow with 8 weeks being an average answer time for EIS/SEIS stuff. This means if you want to put an EIS investment on your January 2015 tax return, put your paperwork in now. Without the EIS certificate number, no tax relief.

* Just to help you even more and make you feel better, all HMRC post goes out via a central post office up in Liverpool where it takes 12 days from the tax officer’s desk to being sent out.

The price for getting it wrong means losing the tax relief. Your chums who backed you in the business may be pleased with the business doing well and the share price being much more than when they bought the shares, but will be seriously upset to receive a huge capital gains tax bill when they want to take their profits.

Other Speakers

Alexander Lushnikov of Chainy aims to connect creative people more efficiently than say LinkedIn and used Eminem as an example.

Alice Holden & Fleurette Mulcahy of Attollo Lingerie have identified a sector in bras for big women DD+ where 81 per cent of the women surveyed were unhappy about shopping for one that fits comfortably. The company name Attollo unsurprisingly means uplift among other things Most curious thing about this presentation was that all of the questions to the two ladies were from men?

Avenue to your Own Business

Going from barrister to CEO in her own business, Dupsy Abiola established InternAvenue so that businesses can get decent interns quickly. She also joined a small club of entrepreneurs who have turned down Dragons’ Den. Blog readers may remember The Man who Turned Down Dragons’ Den Unlike days when I was a student when student loans were unheard of and you got grants as well, a couple of decent internships is necessary to get a decent career post these days.

As well as a very impressive management team including Amir Eilon who helped take Easy Jet from 4 planes to over 60, Intern Avenue also has revenue. This makes it attractive to many potential investors, many of whom are deeply uninterested in something that is just an idea on paper.

To give an idea of the quality of the presentations which are vetted by Colin Spiller who also works with Angels’ Den, all the above have won new business competitions (Intern Avenue has won 6) or been given grants.

Next 3Cs meeting is 2nd December 2014 at Reed Smith with one pitching slot available. More are currently available for 3rd February 2015 meeting at Nabarro. Call 07770 465 011 if you have a presentation ready.

]]>http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/seis-or-sos/feed/0The Bread of Life – after The Final Laphttp://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/the-bread-of-life-after-the-final-lap/
http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/the-bread-of-life-after-the-final-lap/#commentsMon, 15 Sep 2014 18:09:18 +0000http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=17255And the Beer

Hatch, match and despatch as the saying goes for the three times when most people go to church or perhaps when families get together these days. With Cathy’s family over from Zambia for the funeral there is the chance to catch up. Turns out one nephew has his inherited his mother’s business sense and runs a bar in Lusaka but has never brewed his own beer or been to an English pub. Few Englishmen would want to leave such a gap in a family member’s education, so one night it’s a pub crawl round the City. But as my student days are long past, it’s looking in most of them rather than a pint in each. We manage to include two of the smallest pubs in London: The Rake in Borough Market and The Jerusalem Tavern in Clerkenwell.

Now there are Five

Talking of pub crawls, one yours truly never managed was the King Street pub crawl in Cambridge. Growing up there in the 60s, there were 8 pubs in King Street, but such is life that now only five survive. The idea was not so much to show that your liver could take the alcohol, rather that you could get down the whole street without having a pee. If you did, it was back to the previous pub to have another pint. Ladies participating only had to have a half pint in each. Time was when you had two hours to do the crawl but nowadays it is a race with the record standing at just over 14 minutes for the five remaining pubs. Doesn’t seem so much fun somehow. If five pubs in one evening are not enough for you Cambridge & District CAMRA list four Cambridge Pub Crawls.

The above relates to beer as a leisure/social drink, a relatively recent development. Until about 200 years ago, beer was a food stuff and brewing was mainly a woman’s job which is the origin of brewster, but proving that you learn something every day, there are regional variations Just a thought, but I wonder how often this comes up in pub quizzes? In the absence of clean piped water or a well in the back garden, the home brew done by the wife was an essential part of everyday life consumed by the whole family. The mash could be used up to three times by adding fresh sugar and yeast, but the third brew was not as strong as the first, so was OK for the children to drink – hence the term small beer.

Unsurprisingly, regular beer consumption wasn’t always best for productivity and as early as 975 AD King Edgar sometimes known as the King Edgar the Peaceful, tried to restrict beer consumption. Like today, stronger beer was taxed more than weaker beers, but how to tell? Well, you employed an ale-conner whose tools were a pair of leather (ideally stag leather) breeches.

For strength, sugar content is crucial. If the beer had strength the breeches stuck to the seat after some beer had been poured on the bench 15 minutes beforehand. If the breeches did not stick, then the beer was watered down or weak to start with. All the same, bread and ale were the staples of our British ancestors and rulers tried to establish some sort of standard where the Assize of Bread and Ale in 1266 was the first of a series of edicts or laws which were only abandoned in 2008.

Beer Tours

The Adnam’s beer tour in Southwold mentions a previous occupant of the site now used by Adnam’s, where the landlady was prosecuted thirty times for selling watered down beer and short loaves. Proving it’s a small world, one of the two original Adnam’s brothers decided that brewing was not for him. After selling his shares in the family business, he went on a world tour, only to end up being eaten by a crocodile after drinking too much and falling in the Zambezi river. The brewery tour ends up in the brewery shop and after seeing Limoncello there, I had to buy some for my Italian son-in-law who informed me that it was better than some Italian stuff?

Fuller’s Brewery tour is also great fun and the nearby Chiswick Eyot will be familiar to anyone who has watched the Cambridge/Oxford University Boat Race. Both breweries smell less than years ago as heat and water vapour are recycled to make the process more eco-friendly. Adnam’s seems to be way ahead here, only using three and quarter gallons of water per gallon of beer produced against the national brewery average of seven gallons.

Closer to Home

Brewers tend to be busiest in hot weather, so no places on the Camden Town Brewery tour until this weekend. Worth waiting for though as the brewery is compact with much detail given by our guide. Just to confuse, the guide turns out to be a namesake of well-known beer writer/blogger Pete Brown author of Man Walks into a Pub, Shakespeare’s Local and others.

As a former home brewer, it is interesting how processes have changed in my lifetime. Beers use top-fermenting yeasts (similar to the yeast used in baking) which work at around 20 degrees Celsius while lagers use bottom-fermenting yeasts which work at a lower temperature – around 10 degrees Celsius, taking three times as long to convert the carbohydrates into alcohol and CO2. Since time is money in any manufacturing business, it’s not surprising that most lagers these days use top fermenting-yeasts saying that it tastes the same?

The two hour tour of Camden Town Brewery proves to be a very pleasant way of finishing off a Saturday afternoon especially with the Prairie BBQ next door offering Braised Brisket & Pulled Pork. A nice touch on the tour is being encouraged to bring one’s sampling glass on the tour, which was topped up twice in the two hours. The stainless steel containers in Wilkin Street Mews near Kentish Town West station, hold 12,000 litres each.

Most popular beer is Hells Lager winner of a 2013 award and now exported to Australia. The Hells is nothing to do with Hell’s Angels – helles is the German word for bright or light. Nuff said?

All the above tours and others, are now booked online where the price is generally £12.

Had a strange thought last week on the switchboard at TPAS – the Pensions Advisory Service Of the twenty-odd calls I took (longest one 26 minutes) two were from Scottish callers. All very good-natured and one even mentioned Alex Salmond in passing, but if Scotland does break away from the UK, then TPAS is one QUANGO that the Scots would have to set up on their own? Wonder if anyone has thought of this where TPAS’s £7 million annual cost is concerned – helped by the volunteer contribution valued at around £10 million a year?

Main reason for Scotland joining the England, Wales & Ireland was that Scotland was bankrupt after the disastrous Darien Project where Scotland wanted its own colony too. Half of Scotland’s capital was invested in a project that failed after two years with sixteen ships sailing from the port of Leith. You will have heard of this project in the BBC 2 programme Coast where Neil Oliver likes to mention the inadequate preparations made – although plenty of money was set aside for wigs. One of the terms of the Act of Union was the English paying off Scotland’s debts of £398,000.

In the final part of ratifying the Act of Union in 1707, the Scottish Act of Ratification votes were 110 pro and 67 against (38 per cent). If you want a flavour of life at the time, you might enjoy The New Road by Neil Munro which is often compared to the much better known Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stephenson.

The Heart & the Head

Much of the debate seems very parochial with little comment about the issue in world political terms. One of the reasons UKIP is doing well is that many Brits feel bullied by Brussels which also serves as a scapegoat. With Scotland’s leaving reducing the size of the UK, this can only get worse.

But blaming Brussels all the time can be wrong. The latest row over banning vacuum cleaners over a certain power is a case in point – the measure is being driven by the Americans. And it is nothing short of amazing to see Christopher Booker saying that For once, the EU is right on something.

But the whole independence debate can be summarised as a classic choice between the head and the heart.

A Norwegian Viewpoint

If your heart is for independence, then there is nothing to say, but for an economic or head view, the following article from The Scotsman written by a Norwegian who has lived in the UK for 10 years, makes interesting reading:

“Hardship alert

Published on the 10 June 2014

I am a Norwegian who has been living in the UK for ten years and I understand the SNP looks at Norway as an example of how Scotland will be after independence. I have a number of friends in Scotland, love a good whisky and think the Scottish Highlands rival the beauty of my native country.

However, when pro-independence Scots look to Norway as a role model it’s obvious that they only see what they want to see and largely ignore the facts. It took us a long time to accumulate the wealth we now enjoy, and it wasn’t just a result of oil. Remember also that Norway voted on its independence in 1814, and the financial depression in the years that followed was the worst on record.

Our GDP per capita was consistently lower than Sweden, Denmark and indeed the United Kingdom every year since records began in the early 1800s until 1974. The few things that kept us going were unity, national pride and stupidity.

If Scots are willing to go through decades of hardship in order to build their own country, then fine, but no-one should assume that independence is a silver bullet that will automatically transform Scotland into Norway.

It is also worth considering the downsides of living in such a wealthy country as consumer prices in Norway are astronomical. VAT stands at 25 per cent, you pay £9 for a pint in the pub, and the price for a new, five-door Vauxhall Corsa is £20,490 (in the UK the same car is £9,600).

This is fine if you are a top earner, but I am sure no-one in Scotland believes that becoming independent will automatically lead to an accumulation of enormous personal wealth for the entire population.

Finally, if an independent Scotland succeeds it will be because it is totally united. When Norway wanted independence 99.5 per cent of the population voted Yes.

I don’t see that sort of unity in Scotland today, and for that reason alone there should not be a referendum at all.

When I visited Oban on the west coast of Scotland for the first time, my Scottish friends pointed out “McCaig’s folly” which dominates the town. Built by a worthy local as a way of giving his fellow Obanians work, in these times of political correctness, it has been renamed McCaig’s Tower. Perhaps I’m getting bored, but this is what the independence debate is starting to feel like.

]]>http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/mccaigs-folly-salmonds-jolly/feed/0Two Men in a Boathttp://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/two-men-in-a-boat/
http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/two-men-in-a-boat/#commentsTue, 02 Sep 2014 11:35:03 +0000http://www.georgeemsden.co.uk/?p=17215To row, or not to row?

Images linger. Sometime in the 80s when Docklands was being developed I saw an image of a single scull on the Thames at sunset. And after my Full Circle blog reminds of canoeing, it’s time to choose my holiday treat this year. Canoeing or rowing? Research on the web shows many canoeing choices but they are mostly Canadian canoes where you use a single paddle whereas a

But what about rowing? Again plenty of choices where the nearest one turns out to be Furnival Sculling Club in Hammersmith. Rowing boats use two oars and since you are using your leg muscles in addition to your arms, ought to be faster or easier? A long thread argues that kayaks are actually faster, although some disagree. This is counter-intuitive, so what to do? I plump for an afternoon out with Kayaking London who offer a two hour Big Ben & Back trip.

You have to wear a skirt?!

Tour starts at 12.30 on Sunday and is timed to be with the tides. We are asked to be there 15 minutes early and I arrive only 10 minutes beforehand to find everyone else with life jackets and spray skirts on, the latter forming a pretty good seal when in the kayak. There are twenty of us, mostly couples and the kayaks are all doubles except for the ones used by the guides. Getting into the kayak is easy enough but adjusting the footrests requires outside help. A good back support makes the seating position comfortable and Leo joins me in the front. Heaviest people sit in the rear to make the boat handle better. Steering is usually done by the rear paddler but for some reason I am in a kayak with the rudder controls in the front.

We are pushed the short way into the water and are told to gather 50 metres away from the bank. The tide is near its lowest ebb and we set off downstream with the current slightly against us. Remembering my geography from college, this means that the current is slightly less near the edge and keeps us out of the way of river traffic. The kayaks are wide but still rock quite a bit which takes some getting used to. As they are quite long there is plenty of room between the cockpits, even when paddling on opposite strokes – and our paddles don’t clash.

On the way down, we are shown the outlets for the Tyburn and Westbourne rivers on the north side of the river and the Serpentine Swimming Club is mentioned. The wash from the passing river traffic makes life interesting. Periodically, we wait for stragglers to catch up. A DUKW goes by in the opposite direction. Approaching Westminster bridge, one of the guides paddles past us towing a kayak with two ladies in it whose arms are getting tired.

The water is slightly muddy with the tides turning and the river traffic but wildly different from my first sight of the Thames on a family river trip in the 60s. Looking down into the water then was not pleasant and I am reminded of that trip every time I have Oxtail soup. Today, the Thames hosts 125 different species of fish and is the cleanest it’s been for two centuries. Current tidal range is 7 metres in contrast to the range in Roman times when it was 1 metre with the change being due to: rising sea levels, embankments making the river narrower and the South East of England sinking

Mind how you Cross the Road!

Gathering near the London Eye pier, we are told to get across to the other side of the river for the paddle back. With the tide now on the rise it is helping us on the home journey – being stronger in the middle of the river. This seriously shortens the time and we are back at home base but the bank is narrower now with the higher tide. There are two ways of exiting the kayak. Paddle straight at the bank, the front person gets out and pulls the kayak up on the bank, meaning that he gets his feet wet.

Fortunately, there is a proper jetty and with one guide holding the side, I clamber out very ungainfully but manage not to fall in. Last task is carrying the kayaks up the ramp for which they have moulded handles. The tracksuit bottoms and tee-shirt I wore were the perfect clothing but are slightly muddy at the end.

There are longer tours, but the six miles equivalent we have all done in just over 2 hours is enough for a first trip. Doing it against the tides would mean going the equivalent of 12 miles. Kayak London also do training courses which would allow you to paddle a single kayak, but these are fully booked for this year. Hope to do it again next month.

If these are still not enough, wrestler Diamond Dallas Page has invented another one DDPYoga following the example of Joseph Pilates a boxer & circus performer who invented his own style of looking after oneself – arising out of his internment as a prisoner of war in England in WW1. But I digress.

New Moon

Research months after the article show that two of three locations have disappeared and the one still doing it in Chalk Farm has changed its name to Sadhaka Yoga. A phone call informs me that gong yoga classes are usually on the dates of the New or Full Moon and I eventually get the chance to go on one New Moon earlier in the year.

Wandering through the Stables Market in Camden is a bit of a rabbit warren where I eventually find the outfit up two flights of stairs. Being early for a change, I slip into something comfortable, taking my place on the floor after collecting cushions and a blanket. Three huge gongs are in the corner and the students come in and sit down. As usual, it’s mostly women (c’mon guys!) with three males in a class of twenty.

Chambré Yoga?

A few lie of us down on the floor and relax while others sit up with eyes closed. Teacher arrives and we all sit up where the excellent posture of nearly all the students is noticeable. There is no heat like with Bikram or hot yoga – it’s room temperature or if you are into wine – chambré.

Class is in three parts, involves breathing exercises and lasts 90 minutes with the noises from the kick boxing below providing an odd distraction. Final part is with all of us wrapped in our blankets like mummies with the gongs banged repeatedly – creating what could be described as a “wall of sound” much louder than the Phil Spector version

Class over, I have a chat with the teacher. The full set is thirteen gongs but tonight there were just three, representing: the Sun, Moon and Pluto? The evening has been fun and I might go again, but a special gong for Pluto partly spoils it for me. I have practised yoga for many years and would recommend it to anyone, but the idea of Pluto influencing your life/moods/feelings etc. is nonsense.

Pluto’s huge distance means that it takes 248 years to orbit the sun, staying in each zodiac sign for one to two decades. If you are into astrology, it is hard to see how Pluto can affect anyone, especially with giant planets like Jupiter weighing more than all the other planets combined. Talking of astrology, until around the sixteenth century, astrology and astronomy were often synonymous. These sciences started to separate with Johannes Kepler, a court astrologer wanting to make more accurate star tables. In doing so, he discovered his three laws of planetary motion, still used today standing alongside other fundamental laws like Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion and Einstein’s Theories of Relativity.

My wife is dying – easy to see now with hindsight, but at the time, the penny hasn’t dropped – there’s always hope. I am now a full-time carer which cuts out volunteering and regular blogging. In the early part of the year it can sometimes mean 3 hospital visits a week with a couple of parking tickets to make things even worse. Proving that Local Council Parking Departments can be kind, I am let off two of them (one in each council) as they are related to hospital appointments, but no relief next time.

For weeks we have been looking forward to another heart valve replacement and the tests look good, showing that the heart is still strong enough to benefit from a new valve. Results are passed on to the surgery team who draw a different conclusion – the operation is too risky and she would probably die in theatre. This means “managing the symptoms” where the most noticeable one is a build up of abdominal fluid.

Blood tests & extra units of blood keep up the haemoglobin level & slightly ease the strain on the heart, and we are having a chat with one professor who helped with the heart valve replacement in 2011. With no surgery cure now, things are getting very serious and “we recommend that you talk to a hospice.” Did I hear you correctly? Yes I did say, hospice rather than hospital. They will be in touch we are told, and a lady from North London Hospice comes round two weeks later.

The cocktail of drugs being administered changes regularly and after a couple of months, Wafarin is stopped as her hair is falling out. This drug is administered where people have had heart surgery to reduce the risk of blood clots, but is notorious for its side effects – especially when other medication is being taken. Sometimes it all gets too much and I am choking with emotion when talking to her. This earns a firm rebuke “I want no tears from you. I need you to be strong for me!” although I am pleased that she has the strength for this.

Pain Management

Oxygen is finally delivered for use at home where she can use this for occasional breathless episodes and a wheelchair is delivered. They want us in the hospice to improve the “pain management”. On a second visit, the lady from the hospice asks if Cathy is willing to come in, as pain management cannot be done as an outpatient. “I’ll try anything” she says as the left arm has been painful for weeks. Next morning we turn up and two volunteers are expecting us who show us to the room which has been made ready. In contrast to previous hospital visits where the Bed Manager has had to keep us waiting for up to two days until a bed in the ward became available, plenty of rooms seem empty. A small detail strikes me – the room numbers are written “FIFTEEN, SIXTEEN” etc. rather than using numerals 15, 16?

The atmosphere is very relaxed and the place is peaceful. During the day you can hear children in the playground next door and there is a pretty garden out the back. In the afternoon, we hear singing and a member of the staff is playing the piano. Cathy loves piano and really enjoyed her lesson the previous Sunday. Could she have her next lesson at the hospice? No problem and would you like us to leave the keyboard in her room so she can practise? Sadly, this never occurs.

This is the Plan

Next morning, a delegation of doctors and nurses are there and we go through the medical history. The explanation of what they want to do includes a short talk on the four kinds of pain receptors and the different medicines used on each of them. They want to use a drug applied via a patch that was originally developed for treatment of epilepsy. This is done later that day and within 24 hours the left arm which was so painful I could not even touch it, is much better and she can use it – amazing what something the size of a postage stamp can do.

Next day it is sunny, so she suggests we go for a drive. It takes a few minutes to walk to the car and on the way into the countryside, we buy an ice cream. After driving for 20 minutes, we stop in a small village and listen to the birdsong and watch builders at work. 20 minutes later, she wants to return and I drive back slowly. Reaching the hospice, she cannot stand up but can walk after I have helped her to her feet.

Recovering from the little drive of just a few miles takes the whole next day. On Friday, family arrive including her nieces and I am allowed to go to a lodge meeting booked weeks before. The weather is warm and sunny with everyone having a grand time in the central courtyard around which the hospice is built and where there is a fishpond.

Take me Home!

Next day she wants me to take her home. While the hospice shower room is perfectly clean, she wants to shower in her bathroom, so off we go. This also illustrates the relaxed atmosphere of a hospice compared to a hospital. The shower proves to be a disaster where she becomes very distressed and passes out. I am holding her in my arms and I cannot see any pulse on her neck? Is this it? After what seems an age, but probably no more than 15 seconds, she regains consciousness. Her words don’t make sense but at least she holds onto me and we walk slowly to the bedroom where I call the ambulance who arrive during the phone call.

At my suggestion, oxygen is given quickly and helps slightly, but the heart is racing and she is only conscious half the time. The ride to the local hospital with sirens and blue lights flashing, is not pleasant after having heard hundreds of them in my lifetime. After going into A&E I am told to leave her bedside, doctors crowd around and curtains are drawn. Few minutes later I hear “Clear! Hundred Joules!” Twenty minutes later I am allowed back and the pulse rate which had been over 150, is back to around 80. For nearly an hour, she looks her old self again and the blood pressure is higher. We are told later that had she not been admitted, she would have died that day.

Intensive Disappointment

Visits to two other wards including Intensive Care, prove to be a huge disappointment. In Intensive Care, we are finally told that they are not going to do the promised dialysis as the blood pressure is too low and the procedure would not give any lasting improvement anyway. Listening to the young bearded doctor with hair similar to what mine was before it went grey is quite surreal. It’s like looking at a younger version of myself – young, not overweight and really keen to impart the knowledge that you have acquired at that age.

Cathy is too tired to travel, but we finally get back to the hospice the following day. Finally, we are able to discuss final arrangements in a brief lucid episode. Previous attempts to do this had never got past two sentences, but a huge relief to know what she wants. One of the young nurses is very emotional when preparing some medication – first time I have seen a nurse cry.

Following day, much is spent asleep. Cathy has stopped eating and hardly drinks anything. Doctor tells me that this is normal for end of life situations – and reading between the lines, the body is basically shutting down. This prompts a phone call to a sister who says initially that she will visit Saturday. After pointing out that the doctor has more or less just said that she won’t live that long, she is on her way.

Last Words

While Cathy is unconscious, this doesn’t mean that she cannot hear and nurses tell me that hearing is the last sense to go. I whisper in her ear that her sister is coming which with a very quiet grunt, shows that she has understood. Sister arrives and bursts into tears. Allowing 5 minutes for her to recover, I tell her to sit down and say to Cathy whatever she needs to say. After this, there is nothing else – we have done all we can. Cathy is trying to speak – it sounds like “th…th…” Is she trying to say thank you? Some minutes later, sister points that she seems to have stopped breathing, so we press the alarm button. Nurse arrives 15 seconds later who confirms this. So my second wife dies – twenty years younger than I am – aged 45.

I don’t want to go and end up staying two more hours. She just looks asleep but after phone calls to closest family, it’s time to leave.

Back at what might be called the coalface of Pension Advice in the UK, it’s nice to be back at The Pensions Advisory Service (TPAS) as a volunteer on the switchboard. Founded 30 years ago as a charity, it is now a QUANGO funded by the DWP with full-time staff and over 300 volunteers – IFAs, actuaries & pension administrators – retired & still working. Annual budget is around £7 million with the volunteers’ contribution having been valued at £10 million.

Henry James’s famous quote sums up a full and interesting day with more than 200 phone calls where yours truly manages to handle 30 of them with: fraud, incompetence and ignorance all making their appearance:

* A guy has had a phone call from an 0113 number where they introduce themselves as the Pensions Review Board. Assuring him that they are funded by the government, they offer advice on the “recent pension changes”. Something about the call raises his suspicions prompting him to call TPAS. His internet search has revealed no such animal – the Pensions Review Board doesn’t exist, or not in the form that they say. While he is on the line, I do my own narrower search with quotes around “pensions review board” which reveals 20 records of this non-existent organisation on one of the search results.

* FindmyPension are mentioned in another phone call where a colleague points out that this outfit has been dissolved. The caller is quoting from a year-old letter sent from Alicante in Spain. This turns out to be a Pension Liberation case where the guy has received a small amount of money and is wondering where the rest of his money is and why is nobody answering his letters? Pension Liberation is basically “you can have your pension money now, even if you are under 55″ a scam which started a couple of years ago but sadly took sometime for the regulators to wake up to.

The pension providers are now culpable and must do their own due diligence before transferring any money, which has stopped pension liberation in its tracks. This leaves a few early people who may have got their money but who are going to get a 55 per cent Unauthorised Payment Charge from HMRC. Those who have not completed the process are left in limbo and may never get any of their money. To add insult to injury, they may get an Unauthorised Payment Charge as well.

* More cheerful is a call from a sub-postmaster who is being offered £54,000 redundancy money and wants to put this into a pension. Unsurprisingly, he is Indian – a group who have saving built into their genes. He has a current personal pension but no IFA.

Answer: he can put 100 per cent of his earnings into to his existing personal pension plan as a single contribution although he will need to provide evidence of earnings. With his stated annual income of £30,000, he only has to write a cheque for the net amount of £24,000 as the pension fund will pick up the other £6,000 via tax relief. His wife can do the same although as she is in a defined benefit scheme, best get to check how much she can contribute this year. Little point in putting too much into a pension scheme in one year and losing the tax relief, so best to get it in writing. If there is anything left over from the £54,000 (the excess over £30,000 is taxable) then the exercise can be repeated after April, in the following tax year.

* Worry arises from a another call where a guy is reviewing his annuity options but slowness of correspondence between the provider and pension administrator cause frustration. In spite of having informed both parties, he is still being quoted standard annuity rates when he is a diabetic who has to give himself 6 insulin injections a day!

In essence: if you are in normal health, you should get standard annuity rates as your life expectancy is normal. If you smoke, you are probably not going to live as long so you may get an enhanced rate. If you have a serious health issue you may get an even higher rate – an impaired life annuity.

* Disappointment in another call from a guy who bought an annuity in January. He wants to review his options now that buying an annuity is no longer compulsory? Too late, once you have bought your annuity, you are locked in – as would have been clearly explained in the correspondence at the time.

* A teacher who retired on Ill-health grounds was told last year that she could have her pension this year. Now Teachers’ Pensions have told her she cannot have it? Her financial adviser has been unable to help. While TPAS sorts out thousands of pension queries every year, it has no statutory powers or in legal terms – no teeth. If one party digs their heels in, TPAS cannot force them to act.

* One minute before 5pm, a 53 year-old guy asks if he can cash in his pension with the Pru? Without mentioning Pensions Liberation, I inform him that he needs to wait two years. Hope he does not get a call from the Pension Review Board or their next incarnation, in the meantime.

Unless you have been asleep for a while, you will know that today is the centenary of the UK declaring war on Germany in what became the First World War. This declaration followed Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination 28th June in Sarajevo, with Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia 28th July 1914, Germany declaring war on Russia 1st August and then France 3rd August.

Both sides think it will be a short war with the German Kaiser Wilhem II declaring “you will be home before the leaves fall”. Instead, from November 1914 it increasingly becomes static, with trenches stretching eventually from the English Channel to the Swiss border.

Static armies have to be supplied and in Europe, the railways play a huge but largely forgotten role well explained in Christian Wolmar’s book Engines of War

Onwards but not Upwards

Previously, armies had to keep moving as having grabbed all the food in their location, they moved on to rape & pillage (or perhaps requisition supplies) somewhere else further down the road. Not much choice here – if you stayed in the same place, you starved. Without good roads, long supply lines driven by oxen & horses don’t work well, as with an ever-lengthening supply line, an increasing part of the cargo is to feed the animals which can’t pull their loads & die quickly without fodder. Enter the railways.

Talking of horses, the subject of my main story comes from my paternal grandfather, a Shoeing smith by trade who was kept very busy shoeing & reshoeing horses behind the lines – the ones that brought up the supplies. After the cavalry had taken the best animals, these horses were often unpleasant creatures, made worse by their being terrified of the bangs & explosions.

Imagine a young couple recently married and hubby goes off to war, which turns out to be unlike any other. Slaughter is on an industrial scale and chemical weapons are used in large quantities for the first time. Showing perhaps that clouds have silver linings, chemical weapons eventually lead to the introduction of chemo therapy for cancer treatment – but I digress.

The Industrial Revolution which improved standards of living so much for the common man, was now devoted to producing machines and materiel to destroy it. The young wife at home goes to compline every day, praying for the safe return of her husband.

Hubby gets a pass to go home to his young wife, not having to a buy a train or bus ticket since soldiers in uniform don’t need one. After more than 24 hours travelling, he turns up his on own doorstep where you would expect the wife to throw her arms around his neck? Not at all.

Standing on the doorstep in his mud-spattered uniform with lice in his hair, he is shooed around to the scullery at the back and given a thorough scrubbing. No instant water heaters in those days and certainly no shower, granddad sits down in the proverbial zinc bathtub while the carbolic soap and scrubbing brush gets the lice and muck off him.

It’s All over now

War over, granddad is an itinerant blacksmith for a while, going from village to village looking for work. Later, he rents his own forge which business enables him to bring up 7 children. The business folds after WW2, where only a few weeks of trading show that the local blacksmith days are over. Both grandparents meet after the war when my parents are married. One of the nicer things of human nature is that old soldiers tend to get on well and it turns out the granddads were only a few miles apart at the Battle of the Somme, but of course on opposite sides.